• 한국신재생에너지학회:학술대회논문집
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• 2009.11a
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• pp.237-242
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• 2009

A steam Rankine cycle was considered to recover waste heat from the exhaust gas of an automobile. Conceptual design of a swash plate type expander was practiced to convert steam heat to shaft power. With the steam pressure and temperature of 35 bar and $300^{\circ}C$ at the expander inlet, respectively, the expander was estimated to produce the shaft power output of about 1.93 kW from the exhaust gas waste heat of 20 kW. The expander output increased linearly accordingly to the amount of exhaust gas waste heat in the range of from 10-40 kW, and the Rankine cycle efficiency was more or less constant at about 9.6% regardless of the waste heat amount.

• Korean Journal of Air-Conditioning and Refrigeration Engineering
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• v.22 no.7
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• pp.442-447
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• 2010

FPSO (Floating Production Strorage and Offloading) method for LNG industry is efficient and facile compared to onshore NG (Natural Gas) treatment facility. Five simple natural gas liquefaction cycles for FPSO are presented and simulated in this paper. SMR (Single Mixed Refrigerant) cycle, SNE (Single Nitrogen Expander) cycle, DNE (Double Nitrogen Expander) cycle, PNE (Precooled Nitrogen Expander) cycle, and PDNE (Precooled Double Nitrogen Expander) cycle are compared. Simple analysis results in this paper show that precooling process and adding an expander in the liquefaction cycle is an effective way to increase liquefaction efficiency.

• Journal of the Korean Institute of Gas
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• v.19 no.6
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• pp.72-79
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• 2015

Electricity can be generated when the natural gas passes through a turbo-expander pressure reduction system at natural gas pressure reduction stations. Efficiency of the turbo-expander depends on the ratio of the natural gas flow rates to the design flow rate of the turbo-expander. Therefore, the optimal conditions for the operation of the pressure reduction system can be determined by controlling the natural gas flow rates. In this study, we have calculated the electric energy generation depending on the natural gas flow rates at the two low-pressure reduction stations when the pressure of the natural gas is reduced from 17.5 bar to 8.5 bar and have found the optimal conditions for the turbo-expander pressure reduction system through the comparison with the calculation results. The turbo-expander generates the electric power efficiently for the high natural gas flow rates which variations are slight. The determined design flow rate of the turbo-expander has the highest coverage of the natural gas flow rates. The electricity generation is calculated as much as 9 MW(B station) and 12 MW(D station) at each pressure reduction station.

• Korean Journal of Air-Conditioning and Refrigeration Engineering
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• v.23 no.5
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• pp.313-320
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• 2011

For a steam Rankine cycle to recover waste heat from the exhaust gas of an Internal combustion engine, a swash plate type of expander as a power conversion unit has been designed. Numerical simulation has been carried out to estimate the performance of the designed expander. With the steam pressure and temperature of 35 bar and $300^{\circ}C$ at the expander inlet, respectively, the expander was estimated to produce the shaft power output of about 2.67 kW from the exhaust gas waste heat of 25.2 kW. The expander output increased almost linearly with the amount of exhaust gas waste heat in the range of from 5~40 kW, and the expander and Rankine cycle efficiencies showed gradual decreases in the ranges of 72.2%~69.5% and 10.8%~10.4%, respectively.

• Progress in Superconductivity and Cryogenics
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• v.20 no.3
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• pp.21-27
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• 2018

It is difficult to fabricate and maintain moving parts of expander at cryogenic temperature. This paper describes numerical analysis and experimental investigation on a cryogenic reciprocating expander without moving piston. An intake valve which takes high-pressure gas, and an exhaust valve which discharges low-pressure gas, are connected to a tube. The inside pressure of the tube is pulsated for work production. This geometric configuration is similar to that of pulse tube refrigerator but without regenerator. An orifice valve and a reservoir are installed to control the phase of the mass flow and the pressure. At the warm end, a heat exchanger rejects the heat which is converted from the produced work of the expanded gas. For the numerical analysis, mass conservation, energy conservation, and local mass function for valves are used as the governing equations. Before performing cryogenic experiments, we carried out the expander test at room temperature and compared the performance results with the numerical results. For cryogenic experiments, the gas is pre-cooled by liquid nitrogen, and then it enters the pulse tube expander. The experiments are controlled by the opening of the orifice valve. Numerical analysis also found the expander conditions that optimize the expander performance by changing the intake pressure and valve timing as well as the opening of the orifice valve. This paper discusses the experimental data and the numerical analysis results to understand the fundamental behavior of such a newly developed non-mechanical expander and elucidate its potential feature for cryogenic application.

• 유체기계공업학회:학술대회논문집
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• 2004.12a
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• pp.225-231
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• 2004

Scroll compressor has been used extensively for refrigeration since the early 1980's for its improved efficiency, greater reliability, smoother operation, lower noise and vibration. And also, nowadays, the scroll mechanism is used for expander even though in niche market yet. But scroll expander has not been used for high-temperature and high-pressure gas, because the continuous expansion of the gas causes a wide range of temperature distribution over the whole scroll wrap that leads to differential thermal expansion of scroll elements, which results in system vibrations, noise and efficiency losses. For the scroll expander to produce power more efficiently, all of radial and radial clearances between scroll wrap must be the same. In order to reduce differential thermal expansion in addition to improvements in thermal efficiency and specific power, we propose a scroll expander with heating structure. Heat-pipe heating structure is considered as the most effective method to heat the scroll expander at a uniform temperature. This paper includes some results of preliminary study of the scroll expander with heating structure and proposals of their systems for power generation and refrigeration.

• Journal of the Korean Institute of Gas
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• v.23 no.2
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• pp.74-81
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• 2019

Expansion turbine system to recover the electricity energy from natural gas transmission stations is a well-known technique. The turbo-expander efficiency depends on the ratio of the natural gas flow rates to the design flow rate of the turbo-expander. However, if there is a big difference of the natural gas flow rate through the pressure letdown station because of seasonal supply pattern, that is, high flow rate in winter while low flow rate in summer, single turbo-expander system is not so efficient as to recover the pressurized energy from the low flow-rate natural gas. Therefore, we have proposed a new concept of double turbo-expander system: one is a big capacity and the other a small capacity. Here we have theoretically computed the electric powers at the pressure reduction from 18.5 bar to 7.5 bar depending on the inlet conditions of temperature and flow rate. The calculated electricity generation has been increased by 30% from 12.4 MW in a single turbo expander to 16.1 MW in the proposed double turbo-expander system when a minimal design efficiency of 0.72 is applied.

• 유체기계공업학회:학술대회논문집
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• 2006.08a
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• pp.157-160
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• 2006

A turbo-expander is developed for the regeneration in the expansion process. The turbo-expander operates in the partial admission and supersonic flow, and an axial-type single stage turbine is applied to the turbo-expander. Its outer diameter is 82mm and the operating gas is R134a. A 15kW reciprocating compressor is applied in this experiment and the turbo-expander is installed in the expansion process instead of the commonly using expansion valve. Two supersonic nozzles are applied for the expansion process. The high speed of R 134a after passing the supersonic nozzles gives the impulse force to the turbo-expander and some powers are generated on this process. A generator is installed at the end of the turbo-expander shaft. The generating output power from the turbo-expander is controlled by the power controller. Pressures and temperatures are measured on the lines for the performance investigation. More than 600W/(kg/sec) are generated in this experiment.

• Journal of the Korean Institute of Gas
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• v.20 no.1
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• pp.62-67
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• 2016

Natural gas, one of the cleanest fossil fuel, is liquefied to reduce its volume for the long distance transportation. Small size floating liquefied natural gas plant has small area that safe issue is highly considered. However, Dual Mixed Refrigerants (DMR) process has fire potential by using flammable refrigerants and N2 Expander process has low compressed energy efficiency which has high inherent process safety. Therefore, safe process with high compressed energy efficiency is constantly needed. This study suggested an alternative refrigerants to existing DMR process by using Hydrofluorocarbon which has high safety due to its non-flammable properties. As a result, it showed 34.8% lower compressed energy efficiency than DMR process that contains fire potential whereas 42.6% improved compressed energy efficiency than Single N2 Expander process. In conclusion, this research proposed safe process for small size floating liquefied natural gas plant while having high efficiency.

• Journal of the Korean Institute of Gas
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• v.18 no.2
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• pp.28-34
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• 2014

In the natural gas pressure regulation station, high pressure natural gas is decompressing using pressure regulation valves. Waste pressure occurred in the pressure regulation process can be recovered through adopting turbo expanders. However, in the waste pressure recovery process, Joule Thompson effect causes below $0^{\circ}C$ and this low temperature freezes outside land of pipeline or generates methane hydrate in the pipeline which can block the pipeline. Therefore, turbo expander systems are accompanying with a boiler for preheating natural gas. Molten carbonate fuel cell (MCFC), one of the high temperature fuel cell, can use natural gas as a direct fuel and is also exhausting low emission gas and generating electricity. In this paper, a thermodynamic analysis on the hybrid MCFC-turbo expander system is conducted. The fuel cell system is analyzed for the base load of the hybrid system.